s 



3r 



ADDRESS 



t/ 



BENJAMIN HALLOWELL, 



(OF ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA,) 



AT THE MEETING OF THE 



AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, JMD., 




ROCKVILLE, MONTGOMERY CO., SEPTEMBER 9, 1852. 



PUBLISHED BY THE REQUEST OF THE SOCIF.TY. 






5 WASHINGTON: 

PRINTED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE OFFICE. 

1852. 



v 



AGRI CULTURAL SOCIETY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MD. 



At a meeting of the above Society at Rockville, 
on Thursday, September 9, 1852— 

On motion of A. Bowie Davis, Esq., it was 
unanimously 

Resolved, That the thanks of the Society be pre- 
sented to Benjamin Hallowell for the able, elo- 
quent, and instructive address which he has just 
delivered, and that he be requested to write it out 
for publication by the Society. 

Rockland, 9//i monih 13/fc, 1852. 
Esteemed Friends: I have endeavored to com- 
ply with the request you made to me personally, 
as well as the very flattering resolution of the So- 
ciety, to write out my address at Rockville on the 
9th instant, which I herewith forward to you. It 
•will be found, I think, that I have embodied the 
substance of my remarks. Some things which I 



said may have escaped my recollection, and, in a 
few instances, the ideas may possibly be a little 
extended. I spoke from very brief notes, having 
the subject-matter only before me, and this being 
the first time I have ever undertaken to report my 
remarks, I have found it a much more difficult 
task to reembody my ideas in language than I had 
contemplated, and I have certainly been less suc- 
cessful than / thought I was under the inspiriting 
influences of the bright faces around me. I have 
done my best, however, in the very limited time 
I have had to devote to the subject; and if what I 
have done shall only prove satisfactory to you and 
to the other members of the Society, it is all I de- 
sire. Your sincere friend, 

BENJAMIN HALLOWELL. 
To Robert P. Dunlop, Francis P. Blair, A. 
Bowie Davis. 



ADDRESS. 



Worthy President, Members of the Agricultural Society 
of Montgomery county, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
Six years ago, at the first meeting of the citizens 
of the county on an occasion similar to the present, 
I had the honor to address you, and I have been 
led to contrast the present exhibition with the one 
we that day witnessed. The comparison is very 
favorable to the progress of agriculture in our 
county, and speaks well for the industry and en- 
terprise of its citizens. Upon the occurrence of 
the still deeply lamented death of the first president 
of the Society, (the late John P. C. Peter,) whose 
zeal and activity, connected with his practical ex- 
ample, did so much to arouse the dormant ener- 
gies, and induce a united effort to advance the 
agricultural interests of our county, among other 
causes of heartfelt grief for the loss we had sus- 
tained, all naturally felt an apprehension for the 
fate of this Society, but it continued to exist and 
to prosper — no doubt less than it would have done, 
but for this afflicting dispensation; but still it pros- 
pered. So, when one year ago, its late worthy 
president (A. Bowie Davis, Esq.) announced his 
determination to resign the office he had filled with 
so much credit to himself, and such great benefit 
to the Society, strong apprehensions were again 
felt, lest the interests of the Association would 
materially suffer. But what do we now see? 
Under the present efficient president, the Society 
gives evidence of greater prosperity than ever before; 
and I am led to infer, that its success is less due 
to the efforts of its presiding officer — useful and 
laudable as they may be — than to the growing 
energy and spirit, and increasing industry and zeal 
of the people — the masses — in this occupation of 
occupations — farming — the highest, the noblest 
that man can engage in. 

In order to obtain some notion of the high rank 
of farming among the business callings of men, let 
it be remembered that every animal on our globe, 
man included, is dependent for existence on the 
produce of the earth, either by feeding upon this 

Eroduce immediately, or upon those animals that 
ave been supported by it. Hence, as the fertility 
of the earth is increased by the farmer, and food 



rendered more abundant, animals multiply, and 
happiness is augmented, for "wherever there is 
life, there is enjoyment." The farmer thus comes, 
in measure, to cooperate with Deity in the diffu- 
sion of life and happiness around him, and he 
feels the noble dignity of his profession, and the 
felicity resulting from a conscious effort to perform 
a useful part in the sphere in which Providence has 
placed him. 

I have been to-day more impressed than ever 
before, with the advantages of such gatherings as 
the present. To see the venerable gentlemen near 
me,* who, in all probability, but for this Society, 
would have descended to their graves without 
having again the pleasure of beholding the smiles 
of each other's countenances, cordially shaking 
hands, with hearty congratulations for continued 
health and activity; and then the continual meet- 
ing of acquaintances who have not seen each other 
since our last year's gathering, and would not now 
have had that pleasure but for this Association, and 
the pleasant faces of old and young, indices of the 
joyous hearts within, and evidences that this is 
truly a jubilee to the citizens of Montgomery 
county, all this cannot fail to impress one deeply 
with feelings in favor of the source of so much 
manifest enjoyment. I have been , too, most highly 
delighted in witnessing the products of industry 
on exhibition, very especially with the contents of 
yonder tents, the ladies' department. The ladies, 
decidedly, carry off the palm to-day, and if a pre- 
mium is awarded for the comparative merits of 
sustaining this Association, the ladies are indis- 
putably entitled to it. What have the men been 
about? I have been unable to find any varieties 
of wheat, oats, grass, only one specimen of corn, 
and that from my own farm, very few hogs. 
Why have not more stock and farming utensils 
been brought? One gentleman of the county has, 
since last year, made a most ingenious and valua- 
ble improvement in an important agricultural im- 
plement, which, from all I have heard of its import- 



* Major Peter, G. W. P. Custis, and Roger Brooke were 
on the stand by the speaker. 



AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



ance, I wished to recommend to your attention: 
UOd on asking him where I should find it in the 
collectinn, lie said, " I really forgot to bring it." 
I am glad to say better things of the ladies. Their 
part is well performed. The specimens, and va- 
riety of specimens, too, of choicest bread, butter, 
preserves, such blankets, quilts, ottomans, &c, 
&C.| &C, ns are exhibited in those tents, it must 
delight every lover of his county to see. I have 
been reminded this morning by these interesting 
evidences of the ladies' industry, of a circumstance ; 
I have not thought of for a long time before. Some 
years ago I attended an agricultural exhibition for 
the State of New York, at Flushing, on Long 
Island. I was highly delighted to see such speci- 
mens of needle-work, both plain and ornamental, 
wearing apparel of different kinds, hats, bonnets, 
blankets, &c, &c, &c, as were on exhibition,, 
with the name of Miss one and Miss another on [ 
the cards attached, and remarked to thegentleman 
who was with me, " such young ladies as these 
are certainly worth having; how will we get some 
of them our way?" "Send your sons on," re- 
plied an elderly matron who heard me in the 
crowd. I am proud to-day to be able to feel, that | 
there is no occasion to take that advice — our sons 
might go further and do worse. 

There is a great individual advantage, too, from j 
these exhibitions, where we can compare our own 

Croducts with those of our neighbors. I remem- 
er well, when, one year ago, the person who so 
satisfactorily manages my farm, proposed to bring 
a favorite ram which I have to the Fair; I was 
much pleased with the proposition, having no 
doubt whatever, not only from my own observa- 
tion, but from the statements of others, that it 
was the best ram in the county, and that if there 
was a premium offered for such an animal, mine 
would certainly obtain it. Well, it was brought, 
and when I came to look it up in the collection, 1 
found one belonging to my friend, Horatio Trun- 
dle, close by it, which, with all the natural preju- 
dice in favor of my own, I had to acknowledge 
was worth twice as much as mine. I was aston- 
ished ! I was mortified ! not only at my want of 
success, but at my want of knowledge. I had 
possessed a poor sheep, and did not know it, 
thought it a good one, found I did not know what 
a good sheep was, and probably never would 
have known, but for this agricultural exhibition. 
But it did not discourage me. I only resolved to 
try the harder to improve my stock. On one 
thing I determined, however, that is, not to bring 
a sheep to the exhibition again with the expecta- 
tion of its taking a premium, without previously 
making a visit to the fold of my friend Trundle. 
In nider to show that the cause of disappoint- 
ment was not so much the condition of my sheep 
as that of the one with which it was compared, 
I may mention, that during the fall I had the 

Eleasure of seeing a lot of sheep that were said to 
ave taken the premium at the " World's Pair" 
at London; they were subsequently purch 
by a young gentleman near Alexandria, (R. P. 
Dulany, Esq.,) ami brought over to this country. 
They were fine sheep, very fine, but no one was 
equal to the one of Trundle's just referred to, 
exhibited here last year. 

If we wish to have good stock, we must not 
only be careful in the selection of the breed, but 
we must raise good crops, that is, ice must be good 



farmers — treat the stock and the land liberally. In 

preparing for a crop, great care should be taken 
to have good and clean seed. Every farmer should 
save seed for himself. A little time spent in gath- 
ering from a field those stalks of corn that bear 
two or more large ears, and ripen early, or those 
heads of wheat that are long, well filled, and early 
matured, may be the means of adding much to the 
yield of the succeeding year. The grain that 
grows largest, and matures earliest, on any soil, 
is best adapted to that soil; hence, with a little 
trouble, in the manner just indicated, a farmer can 
obtain seed which is better adapted to his soil, 
than any he can obtain from abroad. In peas, 
cucumbers, &c, &c, the earliest sets should gen- 
erally be kept for seed, and not appropriated, as 
is too often the case, for an early dish for the table. 
By foregoing an early dish this year, you may 
have several as early the next, and every year 
after. Those sets of a vine, as cucumbers, cym- 
lings, and melons, should be left for seed, which 

' grow on the main stem, not on the branches. So 

■ of plants that bear seed on branched tops, as the 
parsnips, &c, that seed only should be planted that 
grows on the main stalk. Seed should be large 
of its kind, smooth, plump, and fully ripe. 

Before leaving the subject of the selection of 
seed, I may remark, that it is a question of in- 
terest, and one not yet fully decided, how smut is 
propagated. It is conceded that smut will not 
vegetate, but smutty seed wheat, even when the 
grains of smntare carefully separated, is very liable 
to produce a smutty crop. 1 would offer this sug- 
gestion: Smut seems to be the result of a defectivt 
vital power in the plant, in consequence of which 

! an unhealthy or abnormal secretion takes place in 
those stalks, producing the form of a grain, but 

; not possessed of nutrition or vitality. Now, while 
the deficiency of vital power in some stalks may 

i be so great as thus to produce a growth entirely 
destitute of a power to vegetate, may it not vary 
in degree, and in other stalks produce grains with 
a vital power so weak, that although they will 
vegetate and produce a stalk, they will not possess 
the vital power necessary to mature the grain, 
and will hence form smut? From the best judg- 
ment my observation has thus far enabled me to 
form, smut is the result of deficient vital power in 
the seed, which will, of course, be rendered more 
perceptible when the same lot of seed is sown, in 

, proportion as circumstances are less favorable to 
the growth of the crop: and thus it is impolitic to 
sow even apparently sound grains of a crop of 
wheat among which there has been much smut. 

A seed, however be its form, essentially consists 
of cotyledon and heartlet, or germ, and is prin- 
cipally composed of starch and gluten. When 
placed in circumstances favorable to germination, 
as in warm, moist earth, it passes from a farina- 
ceous to a saccharine state; the starch, which is 
insoluble, is, by a most interesting and mysterious 
natural process, converted into a kind of BUgU 
which is soluble, and adapted to the support of the 
embryo plant. The larger and riper the grain, the 
greater will be the amount of stanh it contains, 
the more saccharin- matter it will afford the young 
plant, and consequently the more vigorous will be 
its growth. Hence arises the stronger growth of 
the Mediterranean wheat, and the propriety of 
removing the small grains from the ear of seed 
corn, — and the advantage that would arise, were 



B. HALLOWELL'S ADDRESS. 



the practice general, of separating, by a sieve, the 
small grains, which are nearly as valuable as the 
large ones for bread, from seed wheat. Wipe grain, 
also, contains more starch than that cut earlier, 
and is hence better for seed. Wheat cut just as 
the grain is passing from the milky state, affords 
more gluten, the nutritive principle of wheat, and 
makes a better and whiter, though perhaps, to 
dyspeptics at least, a less icholesome bread. 

Now, it is interesting to examine a little into the 
process which we call growth. Microscopic ob- 
servation proves, that every germ is a single cell, \ 
of inconceivably small dimensions, endowed with 
that inscrutable power, denominated the Vital 
Principle. In the process of germination, a fluid 
matter, prepared in this cell by the agency of the 
vital principle, oozes through its sides, and forms 
another cell. Each additional cell performs a cor- 
responding part in the wonderful process, and 
thus, from these multiplied, diminutive, and singly 
imperceptible cells, the plant is developed in ac- 
cordance with the type of the species. In all this 
operation, that which nourishes the plant must be 
fluid, in order to admit of movement. Hence the 
necessity that the grain be placed in the ground 
at the proper depth. If not of sufficient depth, the 
heat of the sun will evaporate the watery part, 
and thus remove fluidity, and stop the circulation. 
To prevent this, is the object of covering corn and 
other grains. In a very wet time, they will grow 
and take root well, without any covering. On the 
other hand, if the grain is loo deep in the ground, 
it does not receive the requisite amount of solar 
heat and air for healthy germination, or to sustain 
vigorous subsequent growth, and the crown — that 
is the part which forms the junction between the 
plumule and radicle — is too deeply immersed. 

One advantage of the drill over other methods 
of putting in wheat is, that it affords a means of 
putting all the seed in at a proper depth. If a 
field of broadcast wheat be examined near harvest, 
a great number of half-grown stalks will generally 
be seen, which result from the seed being put in 
either loo deep or not deep enough. In drilled wheat 
the number of these short stalks is much smaller. 
The plumule and radicle, when developed, as 
just explained, immediately go in search of food 
for the growth of the young plant: the former 
into the air to abstract, by its leaves, from that 
element, carbonic acid, moisture, ammonia, and, 
perhaps, other volatile substances; the latter into 
the earth to take up, by the spongioles at the ex- 
tremities of the roots, not only the soluble prod- 
ucts of decomposed organic, matter, but also min- 
eral ingredients essential to the plant, as potash, 
lime, iron, silica, &c, all of which must be in a 
state of solution. Hence, we see that Nature 
works with two hands to supply the plant. If 
one is removed, the other must work the harder, 
and the plant, even then, will not be so well served. 
If the leaves are removed as soon as developed, 
as in pasturing close, the plant will not only thrive 
less, but the roots will draw harder on the soil, 
and the land be more rapidly impoverished. Pas- 
turing is very injurious to young clover, and par- 
ticularly to a young set, as in wheat stubble, and 
should, if possible, be always avoided. When 
the leaves are removed, new ones are developed at 
the expense of the root; the roots consequently 
become less extended, and enfeebled, and less able 
to endure the winter. 



In connection with the leaves, we are able to 
discern that double purpose so frequently manifest 
upon examining the works of Nature, viz: utility 
and beauty. Who has not admired the beautiful 
foliage of the forest and shade-trees, and felt how 
much the leaves, by their poetic motion, shade, 
and sofrening reflection of the illuminating ray, 
increased the comfort of rural existence? But to 
reflect that, at the same time, beautiful as they 
are, they are as useful as they are beautiful, can 
scarcely fail to add to the pleasure with which we 
contemplate them. 

Plants and trees take up their food at the ex- 
tremities of their roots alone. Hence, in manuring 
a tree, it is useless to place the manure near the 
body of the tree; it should be placed over the ex- 
tremities of the roots, the position of which can 
be nearly determined by the extremities of the 
overhanging branches, there being that wise and 
beneficent correspondence in the proportions of a 
tree, which enables the branches to intercept the 
falling- shower and conduct it down over the ex- 
tremities of the roots, where alone it can be ser- 
viceable in aiding nutrition. 

Those who wish to water trees or plants success- 
fully, must take a lesson from nature in this re- 
spect. 

The distance to which roots extend, even in 
grasses and plants, is much greater than is gener- 
ally supposed. My friend, Dr. Noble, of Phila- 
delphia, and Judge Longstreth, of Pennsylvania, 
measured a clover root, which was over six feet 
in entire length, and descended fifty inches below 
the surface of the ground. John S. Skinner, whose 
name can never be pronounced by any one inter- 
ested in agriculture, without feelings of grateful 
remembrance for his early, zealous, and long-con- 
tinued labors in the cause, mentioned, in one of 
the Reports of the Patent Office, that he and two 
of his friends measured the lengths of the different 
roots of one hill of corn, and found the whole 
lengths taken together to be over eight thousand 
feet, or more than a mile and a half. When we 
reflect that these roots are all formed by the con- 
tinued addition of those diminutive cells before 
alluded to, and grow in the short space of little 
over three months, we are made acquainted with 
some of the wonderful operations of nature par- 
ticularly exposed to the farmer, and see the neces- 
sity of deep plowing, and a large supply of food 
in the soil for a large crop of corn. I will here 
mention a fact stated by Dr. Lee in the Patent 
Office Report for 1850- '51: In Kentucky, in 1850, 
on nine fields of 10 acres each, making 90 acres, 
were raised 10,960 bushels of corn, being an aver- 
age of 121 bushels per acre. On two fields the 
average was 189 bushels per acre. Compare this 
with the yields of our best fields, and remember 
that this great produce results, not from climate, 
but soil and culture. Our soils must, be made richer, 
and worked better and deeper, and there is nothing 
to prevent them from yielding as much. I was 
highly pleased with the remark of an intelligent 
Maryland gentleman some years ago, to one who 
was lamenting; over the magnitude of the State 
debt. "Why, "says he " there is wealth enough 
in the two inches below seven of the soil, to pay 
it all." This is a great truth, and if only practi- 
cally believed by us, what advantages we would 
derive from it. 

Plants, in their growth, absorb from the atmos- 



G 



AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



phere carbonic acid, which they decompose, em- 
ploying the carbon in their solid structure, and 
tng pure oxygen to the air. Animals which 
are supported by these vegetables, reabsorb this 

.and re! urn it to (lie air from the lungs in the 
form of carbonic acid. The atmosphere then im- 
parts food to the vegetable, and receives the dead 
Or waste matter of the animal, or, in the expres- 
sive language of Professor Draper, " the atmos- 
phere is at once the grave of animal , and the cradle 
of vegetable existence." 

This wonderful round of mutations is beauti- 
fully pictured by the poet: 

" See dying vegetables life sustain, 
See lite dissolving vegetate ajjain ; 
All forms that perish, othei forma supply, 
By turns we catch tlit vital spark and die."— Pope. | 
On the formation of this carbonic acid in the j 
lungs depends, in a great measure, the warmth of 
the animal system. The first effort of nature is 
to maintain vitality. Hence, in cold weather, the J 
first employment of the food is to preserve the ! 
necessary temperature of the system by convert- j 
ing the carbon into carbonic acid, thus liberating 
the latent caloric to warm the body. When the | 
body is kept warm by artificial means much of the { 
carbon so employed is converted into fat. Hence 
the importance of housing cattle. All know how 
greatly unprotected milch cows "fall off" in a 
cold spell of weather — the materials which should 
form milk being employed in the animal economy 
to preserve the necessary temperature; and it is 
equally, though not so perceptibly, a loss to stock 
cattle and working horses. Have a shelter, then, 
for all your cattle in winter; if of nothing else, 
one of pine bushes will well repay in the improved 
condition of the stock in the spring all the trouble 
of constructing it. Hence humanity is economy, 
and contributes to our temporal interest, as does 
the practice of every other virtue. Again, pigs 
should be allowed to resort to a wet place in hot 
weather to keep them cool, else they lose in per- 
spiration a great amount of what would otherwise 
be converted into fat. 

The food of all animals consists principally of 
carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. The first 
three alone constitute fat, sugar, starch, and resin, 
and vegetable and animal products generally, while 
nitrogen is essential to the formation of all cellular 
and muscular structure. Hence, food that contains 
little or no nitrogen will form fat and warm the 
system but will not strengthen the muscles, nitro- 
gen being necessary for this purpose. Grains 
used for food differ greatly in the amount of nitro- 
gen they contain in proportion to their weight. 
Corn, for instance, contains less nitrogen than 
oats. Hence corn will fatten a horse faster than 
the same weight of oats, but the latter, by nour- 
ishing his muscles, will give him much more strength. 
The varieties of coin differ in this respect. The 
more flinty and oily produce more fat and are 
more heating and are better for fatting an animal 
or feeding to milch cows to produce butter, while 
other varieties support the system belter under 
labor. Butter which contains no nitrogen but is 
composed entirely of carbon, hydrogen, and oxy- 
gen, while it produces warmth and fat, gives little 
or DO support to the muscles, and is much less 
nutritious than the same weight of cheese. Ani- 
mal fibre cannot be formed of butter or lard. This 
appears to be instinctively known to insects, which 



deposit their ova on substances adapted to the sup- 
port of their larva. We find worms in cheese, 
in buttermilk, in bacon, in apples, and in various 
other kinds of fruit, but never in butter, or lard, 
or tallow, because they contain no nitrogen, a ma- 
terial essential to the formation of all animal tissue. 
An apple or a potato gives more nourishment to 
the muscles, and is better to work on than butter. 
We find insects also guided by instinct in deposit- 
ing their ova on trees. The common pines which 
contain comparatively little nitrogen are seldom 
injured by insects — locusts, whatever other trees 
they may injure, never injure the pine. With the 
exception of a single species of fly — called the 
wood-fly — it is not known that any insect deposits 
its ova upon it. 

Trees are composed of root, trunk , and branches. 
The trunk of wood and bark. The wood is com- 
posed of alburnum or soft wood, lignin or heart- 
wood, and the medullar or pith. The bark is 
composed of the liber or inner coat, the corticle, 
and the epidermis. The sap, holding in solution 
the materials necessary for the growth of the vari- 
ous parts of the tree, rises to the leaves, where it 
parts with a portion of the water, which served as 
a vehicle for its conveyance, and becomes organ- 
ized, or converted into what is denominated the 
true sap. In effecting this organization, the cells 
of the leaf seem to act the part of a galvanic bat- 
tery, excited to activity by the solar ray, which is 
essential to its efficient action. And here let me 
remark, that solar tight is indispensable to vigorous 
animal or vegetable growth. Don 't be afraid of 
sunshine. They who shut out the sunshine, ex- 
clude their best friend. Sunlight and fresh air 
are the true promoters of health. Children raised 
, in cities, for want of sufficient light and exercise 
in the open air, as also good country food, seldom 
attain full size, so that it is very rare, indeed, to 
find a full grown person in large cities, unless he 
or his parents have been raised in the country or 
spent much time there. The race seems to deterio- 
rate in crowded cities, both in size and longevity* 
, especially among those who live with little bodily 
labor; so much so, that it is with me quite a matter 
of doubt whether, if the large cities were not con- 
tinually replenished from the country, and those in 
the upper ranks were not constantly giving place 
in business to the descendants of the laboring 
part of the population, they would not become 
ultimately depopulated ? I have been much pleased 
: with the accounts we have of the amount of r.i<r- 
cise taken by Queen Victoria in the open air, and 
which she imposes upon her children. She has 
laudably studied the laws of health, or else acts 
under the direction of some one who has, anil no 
legacy she can bequeath her children will be of 
more value to them. It is said a late Minister 
to the Court of Great Britain (Andrew Stevenson 
was, on a certain occasion, invited to take a lliom- 
ing airing on horseback with Her Majesty, and, 
Strong and vigorous as he was, and accustomed to 
" going ahead," he yet found this lady going ahead 
of him, with her face ruddy from the keen morn- 
ing air, till he was ipiite rejoiced when the termina- 
tion of their journey relieved him from further 
fatigue. Exertise, fresh sir, and sunshine are the 
great promotereof health, and are,n//, indispensa- 
ble to its lull enjoyment. 

To return. When the sap is organised in the 
leaves, it returns through the most newly formed 



B. HALLOWELL'S ADDRESS. 



parts — the alburnum or outermost layer of wood, 
and the liber or innermost coat of the bark. That 
which descends through the alburnum forms a 
new alburnum and new liber, and converts the 
former alburnum into lignin or heartwood. This 
forms one of those concentric rings called a growth 
in trees, and by which the age of a tree may some- 
times be determined when cut, one being formed 
every year. In an old tree, however, the first 
formed are greatly compressed, so as to be scarcely 
distinguishable. The sap that returns through the 
liber converts it into corticle, and then descends to 
nourish and extend the roots, so that they may 
reach new soil from which to derive their supply 
for the ensuing year. A soil thus becomes gradually 
exhausted of those elements which are adapted to 
the growth of a particular tree, so that it is always 
injudicious to plant a young tree where an old one 
of the same kind has died. We see, too, why, 
when a forest of oaks, &c, is removed, not oaks 
but pines will many times spring up in its place, 
the soil, though exhausted of the materials for 
nourishing oaks, still containing those required for 
the pines. The action of the pines and the ele- 
ments, in disintegrating the soil, may prepare it 
again, and often does, for a new growth of oaks 
and other forest trees, on the removal of the pines. 
The same principle is applicable, and might be 
very advantageously extended more practically to 
the rotation of crops. 

When the new corticle is formed as stated, the 
old corticle becomes epidermis, and the old epi- 
dermis scales off, as in the sycamore and nine- 
barks, or condenses in hard, rough crusts, as in 
the oak and hickory. When the epidermis fails to 
split, as occasionally happens in fruit trees, the tree 
ceases to thrive, and is said to be bark-bound. A 
vertical slit with a knife just through the epider- 
mis, will often restore »he tree thus affected, en- 
tirely to health. 

It is the sap that returns from the leaves to- 
wards the roots through the liber that nourishes 
the fruit. As the fruit can take up a larger 
quantity, and, of course, be better nourished the 
more sloicly the sap flows, the best fruit will gen- 
erally be found on the horizontal branches, where 
the movement of the sap is not accelerated by 
gravitation. English gardeners on this account 
take great care in the horizontal training of the 
branches of their choicest, fruit trees. The largest 
fruit of all will frequently be found on those 
branches that hang down, nature aiding them by 
their position to obtain more food from the sap that 
thus flows most slowly in opposition to gravity. 
The amount of sap that flows in any branch being 
limited, it is manifest that if there are more sets on 
thatbranchthan this amount can nourish, all cannot 
mature and form perfect fruit. Some should there- 
fore be timely removed . A little time and labor to 
this end are well repaid by the great superiority 
of the fruit that remains. It may be illustrated by 
attempting to raise twenty animals, as pigs, on 
food not more than sufficient for five. 

As it is the sap which returns through the liber 
that both nourishes the fruit and extends the roots, 
the greater the growth of fruit, in any year, the 
less the extension of the roots to a new soil or 
source of supply, which is one cause of trees not 
bearing every year; or, if they do bear, the fruit 
being less perfect. So far as this cause exists, how- 
ever, it may be greatly, if not completely reme- 



died , by a plentiful application of suitable manures 
over the extremities of the roots, that is, under the 
outer branches, in the fall of the year, and then 
working it in, in the spring. In most cases, if the 
blossoms are not killed by frost, attention to this, 
and preventing the exhaustion of the limb by an 
over abundance of sets, will secure a crop of nice 
fruit every year. 

There being a regular vascular connection be- 
tween the leaves of a tree, and the roots, it is evi- 
dent that each limb is supplied by its own roots, 
and it is a prevailing and hurtful error to suppose 
that when one limb of a tree is removed, the en- 
tire supply which that branch would have received 
will pass into the other branches. Orchards are, 
perhaps, in no way more injured than by inju- 
dicious trimming. The cutting off of a large limb 
is always of very doubtful propriety. The proper 
course is to give trees attention when young, and 
let no branches grow but those that are proper to 
remain. Neither should the limbs of the tree be 
removed so as to expose the body of the tree too 
much to the direct action of the sun. This checks 
the flow of the sap, retards the growth, and in- 
jures the tree. 

The tender part of a tree is the crown, or the 
part where the trunk and roots join. An injury 
here, is fatal. If this part be covered, as is some- 
times done, by throwing two furrows towards a 
row of trees in plowing an orchard, it will greatly 
injure, if not kill the tree. The earth should be 
kept level around the tree near the body, and not 
permitted to lie so that some roots are too much ex- 
posed to the sun, while others and the crown are 
buried too deep. When a furrow is thrown against 
a tree, the earth should afterwards be carefully 
drawn away. In replanting trees great care, on 
the same principle, should be taken not to plant 
them deeper than they originally were. If the 
crown be buried they cannot live. This is one 
great cause of disappointment in planting trees by 
inexperienced persons. 

In budding a tree, the object to be aimed at is, to 
bring the liber, or innermost coat of the bark of the 
bud, in contact with the alburnum, or soft wood of 
the stalk. The sap of the alburnum of the stalk 
then nourishes this liber, and the liber nourishes 
the inserted bud , which develops in accordance with 
the vital principle and type of the original tree, and 
produces similar fruit. 

In grafting, the object to be attained is, to have 
the Mar of the graft in continuous connection with 
the liber of the stock. In grafting old stocks in 
which the bark is thick, while that of the graft to 
be inserted is thin, much care is required to have 
the insides of the bark, not the outsides, evenly ad- 
justed. 

The effect of a bud. or graft, placed on a stock, 
is to modify the sap, as it passes through its cells, 
by its inherent vitality, so as to cause it to assume 
a particular form of growth, and produce a certain 
kind of fruit, in accordance with the life and type 
of the original tree. Now, the vital principle 
which thus disposes the sap is a power which ori- 
ginated from the seed which produced the first tree of 
this kind; and the important question arises, is it, 
or is it not, a power limited in duration? That is, 
can we continue to propagate the same kind of 
fruit perpet ually by grafting and budding? I think 
we cannot. Several kinds of fruits mentioned by 
English writers have already disappeared, and 



a 



AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



some have " run out" in (his country, and others 
are " running out." The first indication of a tend- 
ency to decline is an earlier ripening of the fruit, 
from a diminution of the peculiar viial power, so 
that winter apples that formerly kept till latter 
spring, become less enduring through the winter, 
or even to be a fall apple, and ripen earlier and 
earlier, till ultimately they will rot upon the trees, 
the vital power still being sufficient to impart the 
form, but not to mature the fruit. 

These effects will first be perceptible in situa- 
tions least favorably circumstanced for the fruit, 
and hence the same fruit may be propagated in 
some localities long after it has disappeared in 
others; but it must ultimately fail in all. All of 
our best fruits having originally been seedlings, I 
would query with our nursery men, whether -suf- 
ficient care is taken to cultivate new varieties. If 
the position just stated is correct, and reason and 
experience unite in sustaining it, in the present 
system of budding all, it may frequently occur that 
a bud of an inferior fruit, and that of a kind near 
its extinction, may be placed on a stock which, if 
undisturbed, would produce a nfte variety of the 
very best quality, equal or superior to any that we 
now possess. 

In getting stocks, too, especially of peaches, an 
erroneous custom prevails. On having some un- 
usually luscious fruit handed it is not unusual to 
hear the remark, " You are welcome to the fruit, 
but I wish the stone saved to plant." Now this 
is the very kind of stone that should not be 
planted. Like flowers, which, as everyone knows, 
may be cultivated till they cease to produce seed 
at all, the stamens being developed into petals, in 
such peaches the pulp is developed at the expense 
of the kernel, so that frequently, in eating the 
fruit, the parts of the stone will separate, and ex- 
hibit a small, shriveled seed. 

Stocks from seed thus evidently deficient in vital 
power, and indeed from seed of grafted fruit gen- 
erally, is, in my opinion, one cause of the great 
diminution in the length of life of the peach tree; 
and I think if our nursery men would procure 
stocks by planting the stones of the natural moun- 
tain peach from the western part of Loudon, the 
hardiness and longevity of the peach would be 
greatly increased. 

The principle just referred to, of a limit to the 
period in which the original vital principle will 
possess the power to organize and assimilate mat- 
ter so as to produce a growth in accordance with 
a particular type, appbea to all cases of propaga- 
tion by cuttings, and, if correct, all our Lombardy 
poplars, which are propagated in that way, must 
at some time run out — sooner in less favorable sit- 
uations, later in those that are more so. These 
things are mentioned more to invite attention than 
as ascertained facts, although my own mind is 
decidedly inclined to believe them correct. 

This vital principle is most mysterious; what is 
it- VVe may take an organic substance, analyze 
it, ami find exactly its elementary composition, 
and althou elements are in the greatest 

abundance around as, no art of the ehemisi 

t them to unite in the proportions in which 

they exist in animal ami vegetable bodies. Na- 
ture, by means of tin- vital principle, operates alone 
in her grand laboratory, and leaves DOUghl tor U , 

but t<» admire her productions, ami wonder si the 
means by which they are produced. With the 



elements of food everywhere around him, man, 
with all his boasted attainments, and indeed all 
animals, would be necessarily starved, but for 
vegetable life, taking up those elements, and organ- 
ising them for his and their support. Let us look, 
then, with increased interest on the operations of 
the vegetable world, and on our occupation as 
farmers, which connects us so intimately with 
them. 

That the vital principle is a power, we have evi- 
dence not only from its giving particular form to 
the materials, but also from its raising them in 
opposition to gravity. Look at the many tons of 
e of the forest, raised aloft by this power. 
How many tons, too, are raised by a few bushels 
of corn properly planted in a rich soil. It is a 
power, and that, too, of surpassing interest and 
wonder. 

On the subject of the improving of land, I shall 
be able to say but little. ■ This is the first time I 
ever attempted to address an audience in the open 
air, and I find it more difficult than I had supposed , 
and am admonished of the necessity of abridging 
my remarks wherever I can do so in justice to my 
subject; and so much has latterly been printed 
upon the mode of treating land, that you have the 
best advice in your libraries, if not in your heads, 
and I will therefore devote most of the time to 
subjects which, though not of less importance, 
may have claimed less of your attention. 

The rules for the improvement of land are very 
few and simple. First, if the ground is wet, dry 
it. Wet land cannot produce good crops. As 
previously stated, the roots grow and extend by 
the continual oozing of fluid matter through the 
most recently formed cells; and if the watery part 
which holds the material for forming the sides of 
the cell in solution, cannot evaporate, which is the 
case in wet land, the root cannot grow and extend, 
to obtain a supply of food for the plants. Make 
the land dry. For this purpose under or Fnnih 
drains are very valuable. These should be made 
on the borders of the fast land; for it is from thence 
the springs issue which make the lower parts wet. 
A ditch of sufficient depth, cuts these off, and dries 
the land. In tight clay lands, I have found greeH 
advantage from numerous surface drains, so as to 
permit the water that falls to be readily conveyed 
from the fields by different channels, thereby not 
washing the land in gullies. These surface drains 
may be shallow, and, if properly constructed, need 
not interfere at all with the crop. 

After the ground is dry, (never work it when 
wet,) have it plowed and worked \rell, and ulti- 
mately deep. The object of plowing is not merely 
to turn the land over — the grass side down — 
but it is to break it u/i and pulverise it. A clod is 
almost, if not wholly impervious to the roots of 
a plant, and holds, tiehtly locked op, all the or- 
ganic and important mineral matter it may con- 
tain, and the crop has to obtain ail its supply from 
that portion of the sot! that is pulverised or disin- 
tegrated. In addition to this, when the earth is 
made fine and open, its absorbing p ower is gn 
increased, so that, by what may becalled it 
pillary attraction, it imbibes much more moisture, 
carbonic acid, ammonia, dfce., to support the grow* 
ing crop. Heme the great advantage of working 

corn and tobacco trupiinthi to keep the land open 
and light, and enable it to absorb from the atmos- 
phere those volatile materials that plants need for 



B. HALLOWELL'S ADDRESS. 



their support. After a rain has made the surface 
partially smooth and tight, much benefit will be 
found to arise from as early a working as a due 
regard to the state of the ground, as respects dry- 
ness, will admit to restore the absorbing power. 
It is a very erroneous notion to suppose that corn 
is worked merely to kill grass and weeds, or pre- 
,r ent their growing. This is a matter of very 
mall consideration compared with the benefit just 
eferred to. Grass and weeds among corn give 
iromise of a poor crop, not because of their 
growth, but because they give evidence that the 
land has not been timely and properly worked. I 
am of the opinion that on many lands drilled 
wheat could be worked to advantage in the spring 
by letting the teeth of the drill, or a machine con- 
structed for the purpose, pass between the rows 
of wheat, affording great benefit to the growing 
crop, and preparing the ground nicely for the re- 
ception of clover-seed. I design trying the exper- 
iment, and will, if I live, let you know the result. 

Lastly, be liberal to your lands in manure, and 
labor, and clothing. Do not begin to pasture too 
early in the spring, nor pasture too close in the 
fall. What is left on the ground this year will, 
to some extent, double itself next. We all know 
how a covering of snow, by its keeping the ground 
and roots warm, favors the wheat crop; so will a 
vegetable covering protect the grass roots, and 
cause them to put forth earlier and with much 
greater vigor in the spring. If the grass or weeds 
stand straight on the ground in the fall, it is better 
to roll it, or have it tangled by stock, so as to 
keep the cold wind from the ground about the 
roots. The new set of clover and other grasses 
on the stubble lands should, by no means, be pas- 
tured, except it be to let the stock on when the 
ground is dry, a little before winter, to tangle the 
growth for the additional protection of the ground, 
as before hinted. 

From the protection it affords the land, manur- 
ing on the surface, especially of grass lands, and 
when the manure is long, is among the very best 
modes of applying it. There is perhaps no way 
in which manure does as much good as when 
hauled right from the stable and spread imme- 
diately on the land. 

The maxims for a farmer should be, never 
mix quick limes with any animal manure, burn 
nothing that will rot,* and let nothing rot that 
will support animal life. Feeding anything to 
an animal, while it ministers to his enjoyment, 
wastes none of it. He has to give it off to the 
air or otherwise, and thus return to be again 
incorporated in the vegetable structure, every part 
but that small amount used in his growth. A 
fully grown animal, human, or other kind, gives 
off as much as he receives, and all is returned to 
the land and air if proper rare is exercised. I was 
much pleased with the reference of Lord Palmer- 
ston, in a recent agricultural speech, to a definition 
of dirt, that " Dirt is a thing in a wrong place." 
In this sense, are our premises entirely clean ? — 
the most tidy of us? i plead guilty for myself. 
We are importing guano, at great expense, from 
thousands of miles distance, and neglecting much 
of what contains the very same elements as guano 
at our very doors. I like liberality, but not waste. 



* The only exception is in case of containing pernicious 
seeds. 



While we purchase guano, and other manures 
which have done, and are doing so much for our 
worn out lands, let us neglect no domestic source 
of their improvement. Guano and crushed bones 
I have applied to my lands with great success and 
profit. Guano contains nearly every element 
needed by plants, and in a state in which these 
elements are readily assimilated, and may there- 
fore justly be regarded as one of the most impor- 
tant fertilizers ever discovered. To secure its full, 
permanent effect to the land, it should always be 
well mixed at least forty-eight hours previous to 
its application with about one third its bulk of 
plaster, and then well incorporated with the earth 
as soon as practicable after being sown to prevent 
volatilization. For a summer crop, a corn, or to- 
bacco crop especially, the guano should be plowed 
under. 

You of this county have a most beautiful home. 
Nature has done much for you. " Your lines are 
fallen in pleasant places." 1 have traveled a good 
deal, and have been a close observer of the coun- 
tries I have passed through, but I have seen no 
country that possesses more of the susceptibilities of 
beauty, than the county of Montgomery, taking 
it throughout. The surface rolling and undulating, 
without abrupt hills, well watered, springs burst- 
ing forth almost everywhere, so that each farmer 
has water for his stock throughout the year on his 
own grounds, with yet but little waste land, grape 
vines growing luxuriantly, and if not yet giving 
you " vine-covered hills," at least affording you 
vine-covered hedge-roivs, and beautifully festooning 
them, and at the same time evidencing how admi- 
rably adapted is your soil to the culture of the 
grape. Majestic forests, in many parts fine moun- 
tain views, the noble Potomac for many miles 
washing one of its borders, and that great work of 
inland navigation, the Chesapeakeand Ohio Canal, 
passing through the entire length of the county, 
ready to convey the produce of the contiguous 
farms cheaply to market, and to bring back guano, 
plaster, and other fertilizers, to maintain the fer- 
tility of the soil. The unsurpassed healthfulness 
of the climate, too, is to be regarded. A number 
of the citizens in the county not only arrive to the 
age of three score years and ten — the time allotted 
to man by the Psalmist — but they very often reach 
four score, and even four score years and ten. In 
proportion to the number of white inhabitants, 
there are believed to be more of advanced age in 
this county, than in almost any other portion of our 
country. Then, not among the least of its advan- 
tages, is its position. Immediately adjoining the 
District of Columbia, and every part within an 
easy half day's ride of the seat of the National 
Capital, not only affording means of ready inter- 
course with members of Congress, and other 
officers of our Government, but also with distin- 
guished strangers, whom the capital of such a 
country as ours must necessarily more and more 
attract there. Then the many objects of great 
and increasing interest. I regret to say that 
Congress has lamentably ceased to be deserving 
of being reckoned among these. Some of my stu- 
dents, young men grown, a few years ago, when 
there was a difficulty in organizing the House of 
Representatives, in consequence of two sets of 
members being returned from the State of New 
Jersey, obtained my permission to visit Congress. 
On their return, I asked them how they had been 



10 



AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



pleased. A shrewd young man from the upper 
part of this State, replied, ■peaking slowly, and 
shaking his head significantly, " I think Congress 
is a bad example for school boys." This it too 
true, and it ia greatly to he regretted, and those en- 
gazed in the education of y nub feel it particularly, 
that, in the violence and disorder, unbecoming lan- 
guage, and ungentlemanly treatment of each other, 
so bad an example is set to the youth of our na- 
tion. There are, however, many there worthy of 
being members of Congress in its best days, but 
they are in bad company, very bad. So we will 
pass on to the office of the Coast Survey, and of 
the manufacture of the standard weights and meas- 
ures, under the superintendence of Professor A. 
D. Bache — a gentleman of untiring industry, great 
scientific attainments, and who has done and is 
doing, in the station he so worthily fills, an amount 

of u r I tor commerce and for science, not to be 

reckoned in dollars and cents. A visit to this es- 
tablishment will well pay. Then the Smithsonian 
Institution, that endowment of unexampled liber- 
ality, under the charge of Professor Henry, whose 
unrequited labors have done so much for the ad- 
vancement of the cause of science in our country, 
and whose success in investigating the principles 
of electro-magnetism, is only equaled by his un- 
pretending modesty. Will you permit a little di- 
gression ? 

In 1819j Professor Oersted, of Copenhagen, 
made the first practical experiment, showing a con- 
nection between electricity and magnetism. To 
his labors, those of Professor Faraday, of Eng- 
land, and Professor Henry, now of the Smithso- 
nian Institution, succeeded, and by thesegentlemen, 
and chiill v by Professor Henry, nearly every sci- 
entific principle was discovered that is used in the 
structure of the magnetic telegraph, that wonder 
of this wonderful aire, by means of which a person 
in New York can ask a question of his friend in 
New Orleans, a distance of eighteen hundred miles, 
and receive an answer in ten minutes. While 
Professor Morse obtains the pecuniary reward from 
the telegraph, let us not withhold from Professor 
Henry the reward of keeping in grateful remem- 
brance an appreciation of his invaluable labors. 
There is also the National Observatory, tinder the 
ii of Lieut. Mauray, whose qualifications 
for the office he holds could not well be surpassed; 
mild, affable, industrious, energetic, glad to re- 
ceive or impart information. His labors, in the 
good they have effected, havealready added to our 
national renown. But, my individual interest in 
these subjects has, perhaps, drawn me too far, in 
endeavoring to awaken a corresponding interest in 
your minds, that you may properly appreciate the 
advantages you possess by the location of your 
home. It may be argued that in my high appre- 
ciation of the ad vantages and beauty of this county 
I am prejudiced by love of horn* I fully agree 

With the poet, |||„ | ' 

1 ■ o , :. land nf ev< ry land tie- pride, 
Reloved In Heaven o'er all the world beside, 
When brighter sum dispense tertntr light, 
Ami milder moom emparadise the night. 
Tin 're i- :. »pni oi , ;,rii, lupremel] bleat, 

■ r. iweetei ipol than all the real, 
Ami thai 'iii iiini.h.iHiVr their Ibotatepi roam, 
Thai land ibeii country, and thai ipol their hoa 

Ifoni jiinirri/. 
But in thesensein which the poet uses the term, 



this is not my home. 1 was not born or raised in 
this county or in this State. Indeed, being here 
but two months in the year, it cannot fairly be 
called my home now, though I value most highly 
the cordiality with which I have been received by 
you as a citizen of the county, and 1 thank you, 
heartily thank you, for the honor conferred. I 
then can be considered to speak without prejudice; 
and I say emphatically, that I know no locality 
containing more of what an intelligent mind, fond 
of rural pursuits and beautiful scenery, connected 
with opportunities of congenial scientific and po- 
litical intercourse, could wish, than is to be found 
here. As I said, nature has done much for you; 
what have you done for yourselves ? Leaving out 
of view the unimproved condition of many of your 
fields, let me ask, How are your roads, and what 
are you doing for their improvement? The soil 
is remarkably adapted generally for good roads, 
and it is only for you to will it, in order to have 
them. It can easily be demonstrated, with mathe- 
matical certainty, that if the road tax which the 
citizens of the county have paid during the last 
ten years — I do not mean the tax in dollars and 
cents only, but in labor, time, wear and tear of 
wagons and horses, now entirely lost, not only to 
yourselves, but to the world — had been judiciously 
expended, you would now have good roads, and 
such as could be kept in order at very small ex- 
pense ever after. In Massachusetts, where the 
roads are properly kept, they allow, in loading, a 
ton weight for every horse; a two horse load is 
two tons; four horse load four tons; and they 
travel with the load at the rate of two and a half 
to three miles per hour. Now, this is at least a 
ilnuhle load for equally good teams on our roads. 
Then, fully half the time our teams and hands are 
employed in taking our crops to market, and other 
road hauling, is lost — is a useless road tax, which, 
if employed in the improvement of the roads, 
would , in a very few years, put them in nice order, 
in which state they could subsequently be kept at 
very small expense. This is a subject that I 
would earnestly recommend to the influential citi- 
zens of the county. With such roads as we now 
have, toe shut people out from us. We positively 
put ourselves at double the distance, counting dis- 
tance by the time and labor it would require to 
travel it, which is certainly the true way, from our 
neighbors, from market, from Washington, from 
every place, in fact, to which we wish to go. An 
improvement of the roads would do more to ad- 
vance the interests of the county than all other 
things put together. With fine roads, so that 
members of Congress and other influential per- 
sons from the different parts of our country, when 
on a visit to the seat of Government, could take 
an easy and pleasant excursion into our county, 
at the rate of ei^hl or ten miles an hour, as they 
do in New England, and let them see the beauti- 
ful scenery, line forests, good water power, the 
capabilities of the soil, its great adaptation to the 
cultivation of the vine, and above all the unsur- 
passed hfcalthfulneSSOf the climate, and your lands 
will soon cease to be in market at even the double 
of their present prices. 

If our mads are not improved now, there will 
be still less excuse for US than there has hereto 
been; for so much of the work of the farmer, in- 
deed, nearly all of the real hard work, being done 
by machinery, more time can be devoted to the 



B. HALLOWELL'S ADDRESS. 



11 



improvement of the roads. I have no doubt some I 
of the aged gentlemen near me remember when j 
the wheat was gathered by the sickle, and the hay 
collected by the hand-rake. The grain-cradle was 
a very great improvement over the sickle; and i 
now the reaper, Hussey's reaper, leaves nothing 
more in this line to be desired. His mower, too, ' 
is, in execution, equal to the reaper. Then, the 
drill, the corn-sheller, the revolving hay -rake, and 
the hay-fork, as so efficiently improved by my in- | 
genious friend and neighbor, Edward Stabler, of j 
Sandy Spring, by which a ton of hay can be un- i 
loaded into the barn in five or six minutes — all these 
labor-performing machines executing nearly all 
the real hard work on a farm, and in so much less 
time, too, leave the farmer much more leisure for 
improving the grounds about his dwelling, culti- 
vating his mind, making better roads, and main- 
taining social feelings and intercourse, to which 
good roads in a neighborhood so greatly contrib- 1 
ute. 

But I do not want our beautiful hills and valleys 
settled by persons from abroad. I wish our sons , 
and our daughters to occupy and enjoy them. 
We must bring up our sons, not to be lawyers 
and doctors, but to be farmers; or even if they do 
study law or medicine, let them have 'some other i 
business also, so that they may be able to make a 
living when everybody is in health and at peace, \ 
and it is possible the community might more gen- j 
erally be so. We must bring them up, too, with | 
habits of economy. I was much pleased, a few j 
years ago, with a remark of a young New Eng- 
land editor, in introducing himself to his patrons. ! 
He said he had a capital which he valued at ! 
$30,000: ten thousand dollars in industry, ten thou- 
sand in economy, and ten thousand in perseverance. ! 
This is the capital with which we should set up 
our children on these surrounding hills. 1 would 
much rather one of my children should have such 
a capital to commence life with than $30,000 in 
money. He would be more healthy, more useful, 
and consequently more happy, and at the close of 
his life, in all probability, richer. 

To bring them up to economy, we must set 
them the example; but instead of this, the example 
too frequently set is one of idleness and luxury. 
If a neighbor is to dine with us, there must be a 
ham boiled, chickens cooked in one or two differ- 
ent ways, tarts and pies baked, custards prepared, 
ice-creams, floating islands, &c, &c, the superin- 
tendence of which occupies the ladies of the family 
till the dining-hour, which, possibly, will be a 
little late. Then your guest will eat so heartily of 
the rich fare, that after he has dined, instead of 
entertaining you, (the ladies I am speaking to,) 
he will have to leave you to smoke his cigar, as a 
means of depletion. Now, I would have you to be 
kind to him, and instead of all this preparation, give 
him a bowl of bread and milk. Milk is, to the ani- 
mal system, like guano to the land. It contains 
every element needed. Let this rich diet, particu- 
larly not needed when spending a day without 
bodily activity, be left till work is to be done, or 
much exercise to be taken, and employ the time 
used in preparing it for your visitors m making 
ready an intellectual entertainment. Make your 
company so agreeable to them that they will not 
know, on leaving the table, on what they have 
dined, and the gentlemen with this light diet will j 
not have to forego their pleasure by leaving your j 



society for a cigar, but they will be ready for social 
and intellectual enjoyment. I am perfectly con- 
vinced that if more attention were given to provide 
an entertainment for the intellect, and less for the 
stomach, it would contribute greatly to both health 
and prosperity, and cause many young persons 
to marry, and settle the unemployed lands around 
us, who are now deterred by the prevailing ex- 
travagancies of living. 

Economy and industry should go hand in hand. 
When J get into supreme command, I shall let no 
young lady get married who cannot make good 
bread, work and salt butter, and have it good, and 
in fact do all kinds of housework, raise good gar- 
den vegetables, and propagate and cultivate flowers. 
You may reply that ladies in cities have no need to 
learn garden operations. But, in the contingency just 
stated, there will be no cities, at least, none such as 
are now built; they are an unhealthy and an unnat- 
ural condition of the human family, " sores on the 
body-politic," — they have a very pernicious effect 
upon the rural districts, draining them of so much of 
their enterprise. I would send them to the coun- 
try to improve their manners and increase their 
health and enjoyment; and what sinks of corrup- 
tion would be broken up. I should let no house 
be built without at least from five to ten acres of 
ground attached, for ornamental grounds in which 
to promenade, a vegetable garden, a flower gar- 
den, and, not the least, a fine green plat for the chil- 
dren to romp on in the fresh air and intermingled 
sunshine and shade as the solar rays passed through 
the waving branches above them. Then their 
ruddy cheeks would glow with health, their con- 
stitutions would be vigorous, and they would be 
able to enjoy life subsequently, and be prepared to 
transmit strong constitutions to their posterity. 
Just imagine the condition of this State, if Balti- 
more, Washington, Georgetown, Frederick, &c, 
were thus scattered over it, and the immense sums 
which are now employed irrationally in crowding 
a great, high, and still concealed palace, tight 
among a cluster of others, to be the prison-home 
of half a dozen weak and pale inhabitants, were 
devoted to erecting sensible and tasteful dwellings 
on these beautiful hills, and improving and orna- 
menting the grounds adjacent. What a paradise 
it might be. Then, not only good common roads 
but railroads and telegraph wires would traverse 
the State in every direction, so that business could 
be transacted with nearly or quite as much readi- 
ness as it can be done in cities as at present built. 
No, gentlemen and ladies, when /get into supreme 
command, there shall be no cities such as we have 
at present. Certainly, all necessary and proper 
business of commerce and manufactures can be 
conducted without so great a sacrifice of health, 
happiness, and comfort, and consequently of morals. 
And no lady shall get married who cannot do all 
kinds of housework, grow all kinds of garden 
vegetables, and cultivate flowers. I should not 
insist on her always doing the work with her own 
hands, but she should know how to do it, so as to 
direct and superintend operations, and then she 
would be certain to become so interested that she 
would be unable to keep her own hands from be- 
ing occasionally occupied, and thus not only secure 
superior vegetables for the table, but from the 
exercise in the light and fresh air have more vigor- 
ous health to enjoy them. But having thus an- 
nounced my " platform," fortunately for your 



12 



AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



C resent customs, more perhaps than for your 
ealth and enjoyment, I shall not be likely to be 
installed into power. 

I think it nght to state in this connection, that 
I have been greatly interested indeed, in examin- 
ing the contents of 1 yonder tents, to see the choice 
bread, I Hitter, preserves, &c.,&C.,but, ladies, did 
the mothers or the daughters make them? that is 
the question I would like to have answered. I am 
sometimes apprehensive, but possibly this is one 
of the effects of advancing years, that mothers are 
more fearful than they used to be lest their daugh- 
ters injure themselves at employment. Do'nt, I 
beseech you, favor them to their hurt. Let them 
learn to do every kind of work; let them take j 
plenty of exercise in the open air, and their con- 
stitutions will become strong and vigorous, and 
unborn generations will have great cause to bless | 
you. 

I will say, too, to the young ladies, that I have 
one favor to ask of them as a return for my at- 
tempt to interest and entertain them: that is, if 
they ever do happen to let a thought enter their 
minds about getting married, that they immedi- 
ately and invariably associate with that thought 
these questions: can 1 make good, wholesome 
bread, good butter, good soup; can I do all kinds 
of cooking, and house work, and plain sewing; 
do I know how to raise vegetables of all kinds 
needed for the table, how to save the best seed, 
and how to cultivate flowers. If she can answer 
all these questions to herself in the affirmative, I 
wish her to understand that she has my full con- 
sent to get married. With such a companion, her 
husband would be none the less able to make a 
living, let his circumstances be what they may; 
on the contrary, he will be more able. Such a 
wife would be truly a great treasu.-e. If she can- 
not answer them all in the affirmative, my advice 
to her is, to be able to do so in as short a time as 
possible. 

That I may aid a little to this end, I will give 
you a few useful hints. I am speaking to the 
young ladies. In the first place, every family 
should make their own soap, at least all for ordi- 
nary purposes. Economy requires it, and the 
means of doing so are within the easy reach of 
every family, and liable to be in great measure 
wasted if not so employed. It is, besides, a sci- 
entific and interesting operation. Time will allow 
me only to give you a few brief hints which are 
requisite to secure success. The principal cause 
of the failure of this operation, arises from want 
of sufficient care in the ashes. 

Ashes from leaves or twigs and small branches 
Contain much more alkali, and are much better for 
making Boap, than those from large limbs, or the 
body of a tree. Pine wood adonis very little pot- 
ash, and its ashes should nol generally be pre- 
served for soap-making. Care should be taken, 

too, m order to prevent disappoint inn it in the pro- 
cess, always to have the ashes well burnt, thai is, 
by a hot fire, and with a free draft of air, before 

they are placed in the ash-pit. The alkali of the 

ashes which collect in an "air-tight stove," and 
indeed in i rally, and those at the ends 

of an open lire, for mUil of a full supply of air, 

with adequate heat, becomes united with pyrolig- 
neons and other vegetable acids, so as to farm 
ah , and render the ashes unfit far soap- 
making. The vegetable acids being all combust- 



ible, the value of such ashes can be entirely re- 
stored by burning them, that is, by placing them 
on a hot open fire, where there is a/re< drqfl of air; 
and this should be done every time before the ashes 
are put away for use. The ash-pit must not be of 
wood, but fire-proof, and must be dry, and kept 
covered closely, so as to exclude the air. 

Next let me refer to churning. Few ordinary 
processes are less understood, even by the scien- 
tific, than that of churning; indeed it can hardly 
be said to be fairly known, whether the process is 
mechanical, or chemical, or both combined. Dur- 
ing the process, there appears to be an enlarge- 
ment of bulk of about one third, an absorption of 
oxygen from the air, and an elevation of temper- 
ature of about four degrees. A churn should never 
be filled more than about half full of cream, nor 
be so tight as wholly to exclude the air. From 
microscopic observation, the butter is believed to 
be inclosed in small sacks, upon breaking which, 
the inclosed batter is liberated. Hence the read- 
iness with which butter frequently forms where 
the cream oozes through by the axle of the crank, 
the constant pressure breaking these cells, so as to 
liberate the butter. As previously remarked, dif- 
ferent constituents of food, are differently employed 
in the animal economy; some parts are used for 
the formation of these cells or sacks, to which 
nitrogen is indispensable, others to filling these 
sacks with butter, to which carbon, hydrogen, and 
oxygen alone are necessary. Different kinds of 
food, as well as different treatment of the animal, 
will greatly modify, not only the amount of butter, 
but also the readiness with which it will be ob- 
tained from the cream. If the food have an excess 
of nitrogen, in proportion to the carbon, hydrogen, 
and oxygen, or if the cows are not kept sufficiently 
warm, but in order to keep up the necessary heat 
have to use the combustible matter of their food 
for that purpose, the sacks will be both tough, and 
not well filled, so that the butter will be " long in 
coming," and little of it, and poor and white when 
it does come. The remedy for this is to get your 
fathers and brothers, to keep the cows warm and 
well protected, and give them a sufficiency of 
oleaginous food, as corn meal, oil cake, or mate- 
rial of this kind, and you can have nearly or quite 
as good butter in winter as in summer, if the cows 
are equally fresh. 

To clear coffee: — albumen, as the white of egg, 
is coagulated by heat, but is readily soluble in cold 
water, so that if even a very small quantity is dis- 
solved in cold water, and the water gradually heat- 
ed, the diffused albumen coagulates in every p 
a .d as a tine gauze, passing up through the fluid, 
removes any gross particles it may contain. This 
is the principle upon which white of e^ r g r , or isin- 
glass, is employed in clearing coffee. It is evident 

thai it would be perfectly useless to add it to the 

hot fluid, as it would coagulate instantaneously, 
and could have clarifying effect, The same 

principle applies to boiling meat. Meat is com- 
posed of albumen, which is, as just said, soluble 

in cold water, gelatin*, which is soluble in hot 

water, andjlorin, which is not soluble at all. Now, 

keep in mind I bat it is not the irult /'that cooks the 
meal in any instance; the water does not penetrate 
the meat or the food co.died by It, except it I I 

a very small extent indeed; it is the heat that cooks, 

anil the water is used only as a means of applying 
that heat equally to the different parts of the article 



B. HALLOWELL'S ADDRESS. 



13 



to be cooked, and to prevent the temperature rising 
too high, inasmuch as the water can be made but 
little hotter than two hundred and twelve degrees, 
even when it contains salt, and is covered with 
oil. Hence, when it is desired to dissolve both 
the albumen and gelatine, as in making soup, the 
joint must be well sliced, and the water it is put in 
must be cold to dissolve the albumen, then heated 
till it boils to dissolve the gelatine and melt the fat. 
If the meat is put into hot water at first, the albu- 
men will coagulate, and the soup be deprived of 
much of its richness. When the meat is to be 
used, and not the soup, the hotter the water when 
the meat is put in the better, so as to coagulate the 
albumen, and preserve the richness. The boiling 
point of water, two hundred and twelve degrees, 
is too high a temperature to cook some articles of 
food to perfection. It is too high a temperature, 
for instance, for boiling eggs. Do you know how 
to boil an egg? Like milk, an egg contains every 
element needed by the animal system, and in a 
more concentrated form than any other article of 
diet, and there is no more wholesome or nutritious 
food when properly cooked; but as often brought to 
the table, eggs are exceedingly indigestible, and 
scarcely fit to eat except by some robust laborer. 
Because of its being so nutritious and so slow of 
digestion, a person, as is well known, can fast 
longer on hard boiled eggs, than on any other kind 
of food. In what is often called a soft boiled egg, 
the white is perfectly coagulated by being too 
highly heated, and very indigestible, while the 
yolk is soft only because the heat has not pene- 
trated that far, and is therefore not cooked at all. 
If the egg can be peeled without breaking, or if 
the white is coagulated so as to stick to the shell, 
it has been cooked at too high a heat. The proper 
way to cook them, is to pour boiling water into a 
vessel, (the quantity must depend on the number 
of eggs to be cooked, and is soon learned by ex- 
periment,) and then, after the eggs are placed in, 
cover the vessel tightly, and in about ten or fifteen 
minutes the eggs will be nicely and wholesomely 
cooked, and so that when they are broke, the con- 
tents will run into a cup without sticking to the 
shell. There is no danger of their cooking too 
much in this way. 

Meat, as a ham, boiled at a temperature beloio 
that of boiling water, is considered, and no doubt 
is, more rich and juicy, as also more digestible, 
because the albumen is not so fully coagulated. 
Hence some epicures have hams boiled in wine, 
the effect of which is not, as many suppose, to 
impart to the meat the taste of wine, which it could 
not do as the wine does not penetrate the meat; 
but to cook it at a lower temperature, the wine boil- 
ing at a lower heat than water, of course prevents 
the meat from getting any hotter than the tempera- 
ture at which it boils. Rare roast meat, as beef, 
if cooked, bears the same relation to that more 
done that a soft boiled egg does to one done hard, 
and is of course more digestible and wholesome. 

Roasting, boiling, &c, should always be done 
by a hot fire, with good coals, so as partially to 
char the outer ends of the small vessels contained 
in the meat, and thereby retain the volatile and 
fluid juices, which would otherwise escape, and 
the meat will be much richer and better flavored. 
In cooking dough-nuts oil or lard is used, wholly, 
to regulate the temperature, this giving a sufficient 
degree before it boils (over 600°) to cook and ! 



brown the dough, which is penetrated very par- 
tially, indeed, by the lard. 

Now, young ladies, let us leave the kitchen, in 
which I fear I have detained you too long, and go 
j into the flower garden. I am very fond of flowers, 
and I feel myself highly honored with the most beau- 
tiful boquets you see here presented to me by some 
of your number, whom I take the present occasion 
heartily to thank. I admire flowers greatly and 
much favor their cultivation. I not only like 
them, but I estimate more highly all young persons 
whom I know to be fond of them. They are so 
refining, so pure, such fit emblems of youth and 
beauty, healthfulness and innocence, and may I 
not add, too, of prospective usefulness. There is 
much in them, also, to invite observation and 
reflection. The only point to which I shall at 
present have time to direct your attention, is the 
regular periods of the day at which many different 
varieties bloom and close. This fact was first 
remarked by Linnaeus, who proposed the Dial of 
Flowers or Floral Clock, by which the time of 
day could be known in the garden, by the condi- 
tion of the flowers. How much more poetical and 
Edenlike, to make an appointment to meeta friend 
at the blooming of the Morning Glory or the folding 
of the Hare Belle, than to name a numerical hour 
of the clock. It gives rise, too, to such beautiful 
and instructive reflections as the following: 
" 'Twas a lovely thought to mark the hours, 
As they faded in light away. 
By the opening and the folding flowers 
Tnat laugh in a summer's day. 

Yet is not life, in its real flight, 
Marked thus, even thus, on earth, 
By the closing of one hope's delight 
And another's gentle birth ! 

Oh, let us live, so that flower by flower, 

Fading in light, may leave 

One lingerer still for the sunset hour, 

A charm for the shaded eve." F. Hemans. 

Now, I will leave the young ladies among the 
flowers, and accompany the young fanners on an 
excursion of observation to the fields. My great 
object is, in my present address, to invite my 
young friends to observation and reflection, being 
perfectly convinced they will thereby greatly add, 
not only to their intellectual improvement, but 
equally to their enjoyment. The first thing we 
shall notice is the chestnut trees. Were they now 
in bloom, I would draw your attention to the blos- 
som, and show you that those furzy cntterpillar- 
like looking pendents, that are frequently, if not 
generally, taken to be the blossom, are not such 
at all. These bear the same relation to the real 
blossom that the tassel of corn does to thesilk on the 
ear. The true blossom has a glossy surface, with- 
out furze, and is generally surrounded more or less 
by the appendages just referred to. The same ia 
true of the chincapin, walnut, &c. But the chest- 
nut trees have burs on, which will now soon open. 
Have you ever studied the philosophy of the open- 
ing of chestnut burs ? When affected by the hot 
sun or frost, so as to stop the sap from circulating, 
the watery part evaporates from the outside of the 
bur, causing it to shrink, and become too small 
to cover the nuts; whence it beautifully separates 
along the natural divisions, and, as it dries more 
and more, warps wider and wider open, leaving the 
nuts temptingly exposed to view, or permitting 



14 



AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



them to fall, upon mi agitation of the limb by a 
breeze, or a club. When a dry wind succeeds a 
frosty morning, the burs, of course, open more rap- 
idly. On the same principle, chincapins, shell- 
barka, fte., open. 

Next let us examine the buckwheat, on which 
the grains are now just forming. We shall find 
thai there is a great peculiarity in the development 
of the grail) on this plant, the hull, beautifully 
folded, forms, of nearly full size, before any secre- 
tion of farina or meal takes place within it, and 
this hull performs the office of secreting the farina. 
We see, also, that the hulls form successively up 
the stalk, so that often they are in every stage, 
from the blossom to the full and ripe grain. When 
the buckwheat becomes affected by thesun orfrost, 
so as to cause the circulation to cease, the grains 
can fill no further, and we will find them in every 
stage of fullness, down to the mere hull, or " light 
grains." 

We now come to the cornfield, which affords one 
of the most interesting subjects of contemplation. 
By means of the agency of the vital principle re- 
Biding in the germ or cell of a single grain, it in a 
few months appropriates to itself the inorganic 
elements in the earth, and in the air, to produce 
this wonderful structure, stalk and ear. [Here a 
stalk was exhibited.] This mysterious agent 
called the vital principle! What is it? That it is 
a power, as previously remarked, we have full 
evidence in the many tons of matter which a bushel 
of corn, for instance, is enabled by it to collect, 
and most firmly weave and bind together. Where 
was all the matter six months ago which now 
covers your forests with foliage, your cornfields 
with their luxuriant crops, fills your barns with 
hay, grain, and straw? It was dead matter in tin 
earth and air, and has all been collected by this 
most wonderful, hidden, and mysJerious power. 

Its mystery is only equaled by its importance, 
because, on this principle, in the vegetable kingdom, 
all animal existence on the globe immediately de- 
pends for support. Man may analyze his food, 
and ascertain precisely all the elements of which 
it is composed, and the exact proportion in which 
they are combined, but his highest skill is unable 
to cause the elements to combine in these propor- 
tions, or produce from the whole what would 
sustain life for a single hour. Vegetables alone, 
by means of the vital principle with which they 
are endued, can effect this. They are the grand 

for man, by a most mysterious 
bringing the inorganic elements which cannot be 
assimilated at. all by the animal system, into a con- 
dition in which the animal can appropriate them 
to its nourishmnt and growth. Some animals, as 
of prey, cannot even assimilate tegetablt 
bodies, bul require that their food shall have un- 
e animal organisation also, and would starve 
Bul still they are dependent on 
lies, since the animals they feed on are sup- 
ported by them. 

i, it is the growth of the present year, 
principally, by which all are supported; so llial if 

rth were to cease to produce for a single 

id the food upon it were d 1st ill mi I 

to i.e partaken of by all animals as needed, every 
am would necessarily perish. We could not thus 

dispense with a sin ; but for our conso- 

lation we have ll.e abiding promise that, "while 
the earth remaineth, seed tune ami harvest shall 



" not cease." But what I am aiming at, is to in- 
I duce you, in this connection, to view with greater 
interest the growing plants around you, and re- 
I, member that as you increase the fertility of the 
I earth, and consequently vegetable growth, you 
thereby increase the means of life and enjoyment. 
, To return to our stalk of corn. Examine its 
] singular structure, and you will find that the cob 
| grows from the stalk, and from every part of the 
J cob where a grain is to set, a stran of silk puts 
i out, and extends to the end of the ear, so that there 
I! are as many strans of silk, as the cob is designed 
! to have grains. But there will no grain set at the 
origin of any stran of silk, unless the farina or 
pollen from that or some other stalk, falls on that 
silk. If the silk is removed before the pollen falls 
on it, no grain will set. When a stalk grows 
singly, it may have the appearance of a large ear 
on; but upon opening it, there will be but few 
j grains, because, from the solitary tassel, few strans 
of silk received the pollen, and became impreg- 
[ nated, so as to mature the grain. This manifests 
the propriety of the present mode of planting corn 
in a body, so that the air becomes filled with 
pollen, some of which falls on every stran of silk. 
The size of the cob, and the number of rows, de- 
pend on the stalk. The size and character of the 
grain, on the tassel. This suggests a ready method 
of producing a cross of different varieties. If we 
wish, for instance, to set a large, deep grain, in- 
stead of a small one, on a large cob, plant the 
varieties in alternate rows, and then remove the 
tassels as they put out, from those rows that have 
the cob you desire to retain, the pollen from the 
other tassels will be sufficient to mature all, and 
thus will set the peculiar kind of grain on the cob 
of the other. But let us examine a little closer, 
and inquire into the nature of thai force by which 
the particles of matter are thus taken from the 
earth and the atmosphere, and disposed to form 
the leaf, the stalk, the cob, and then, from each of 
these points on the cob, to arrange these gross 
particles into that beautiful and delicate silk, and 
extend them all out to the extremity of the ear. 
How is this performed with such un deviating pre- 
cision and certainty ? Again, if we take an egg 
of any bird, say a pea fowl, and expose it to ■ 
proper degree of warmth and moisture, either ar- 
tificial or by means of the bird's body, for the 
bird sets on it only to keep it warm and moist, by 
this warmth the contained germ, or single cell, is 
developed, the particles of which the contents of 
the egg are composed, so arranging themselves in 
this development, as to form the delicate parts of 
the eye, the heart, the liver, the bones, 
.Now, by what power is this effected? We call it 
the vital principle. But what is that? I desire to 
make you feel the importance of this inquiry- 
And then this young pea fowl is fed upon the corn, 
the development of which we have already exam- 
ined, and it grows and puts out feathers, and the 

materials of this corn just gathered from the earth 

and air, are Conducted along these extended feath- 
ers (here some long pea fowl feathers wen 
hibited] and arranged into these most beautiful, 
rainbow-colored, eyes at their extremities. T 

beautifully colored rings are composed of particles 

which were very recently iii the earth, but which 

have undergone the double organization, first the 

table, and then the animal. Undoubtedly the 

. whole of this wonderful process cannot rationally 



B. HALLOWELL'S ADDRESS. 



15 



be ascribed to anything short of the immediate ac 
Hon of Deity. The poet Cowper, in the following 
quotation, forcibly argues to this conclusion: 

" Some say that in the origin of things, 
When all creation started into birth, 
The infant elements received a law, 
From which they swerved not since ; that under force 
Of that controlling ordinance they move, 
And need not His immediate hand, who first 
Prescribed their course, to regulate it now. 
But how could matter occupy a charge, 
Dull as it is, and satisfy a law 
So vast in its demands, unless impelled 
To ceaseless service by a ceaseless force, 
And under pressure of some conscious cause? 
He feeds the sacred fire 
By which the mighty process is maintained, 
Who sleeps not, is not weary ; in whose sight 
Slow circling ages are as transient days ; 
Whose work is without labor, whose designs 
No flaw deforms, no difficulty thwarts, 
And whose beneficence no charge exhausts." 

The farmer having all these operations of the 
Creator continually before and around him, seems 
to live nearer to the Good Spirit. 

Let us now return again to the buckwheat field. 
There we find the bee busily engaged in extract- 
ing honey. We follow him home, and observe his 
operations in building his cells in obedience to the 
law of instinct. Mysterious and unerring instinct, 
what is it ? It is not education, for it is the same 
in all, and is perfect in early life, and even where 
an animal has been separated from all others of 
its species. It is not reason; it is not chance. It, 
too, is Deity, acting immediately upon sentient 
matter, with that unerring and unchangeable cer- 
tainty by which gravitation is made to act by the 
same Almighty Being on dead matter. We call 
them laws of nature, but " nature is only the 
name for an effect whose cause is God." The 
same wise design by which the particles of the p?a 
fowl's food are made to trace the long feather and 
assume that beautiful rainbow-colored " eye" at 
its extremity, forms the cell of the bee; and it is 
no more proper to speak of the ingenuity of the 
bee in the art of construction than of the pea fowl 
in the art of painting; both operations, and all 
similar ones, being entirely and immediately under 
the guidance and control of the one Great Univer- 
sal Artist. Hence we see why 

" Reasoning at every step he treads, 
Man yet mistakes his way ; 
While meaner things, whom instinct leads, 
Are rarely known to stray." — Cowper. 

And, as far as they are guided by instinct, they 
never are. 

Of all the subjects my mind has ever contem- 
plated, and they have been numerous, those of the 
organic world, daily exposed to the view of the 
farmer, have greatly the precedence for interest 
and wonder, and witness most strongly the com- 
bined wisdom, goodness, and power of God. I 
have explored the field of astronomy to its furthest 
visible verge, have made myself familiar with its 
physical laws, and have reveled with delight in 
the immense regions of space, filled with mighty 
orbs, by which I was surrounded, and felt an im- 
press of the power of Him who made them. But 
in the only light in which these bodies can be 
viewed they are mere masses of dead matter, sub- 
ject in their movements to two forces, the pro- 



jectile and central, the laws of which we feel we 
can readily comprehend; but the laics of life, and 
their influence in vegetable and animal develop- 
ment, out of the same few simple materials, form- 
ing such an infinite variety of productions, dis- 
posing the particles with such undeviating regu- 
larity to perform the most important functions, 
and holding them in their combinations by a power 
so strong, so hidden, so wonderful; these areper- 
fectly inscrutable and overwhelming, the more so the 
more they are contemplated, and command the 
conclusion that in tracing them we have arrived 
at the last, the final link in the chain of sequences, 
and that this link resides in the Creator and Up- 
holder of all things. 

Ladies and gentlemen: I thank you for the kind 
attention with which you have listened to my re- 
marks. I am sensible I have detained you too 
long, but must plead the same excuse for not being 
more brief that a gentleman once did who was 
asked why he did not make his discourse shorter, 
"I had not time." I have been for some time 
past quite indisposed, so much so that I was very 
apprehensive I should be unable to meet you on 
this interesting occasion. Although not fully re- 
covered, I am glad I am here, and I only hope, 
after this long infliction, that you may be also. 
My object has been, however, in this discourse, 
not to waste the time of any of us, but to place 
before the minds of my hearers, particularly the 
younger part of my audience, subjects that will 
invite to thought and investigation, being so fully 
convinced of the increase of true and substantial 
enjoyment that thence arises. To reflect and 
study — not books, but the volume of nature, one 
or other page of which is continually open before 
you, inviting your perusal. Then, as nature's 
poet says, you will "find tongues in trees, books 
in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good 
in everything." 

How much yet remains to be discovered and 
known by even the wisest and most learned. The 
celebrated Newton, who it was conceded, occu- 
pied a higher position on the hill of science than 
any other man, remarked, near the close of his 
long life, on comparing the little he knew with the 
amount there was to be known, that "he felt like 
a child playing with a pebble on the shore, while 
the great ocean of truth lay unexplored before 
him." 

All he knew he thought bore no more compari- 
son to the vast unknown, than a pebble to the 
treasures and wonders of the mighty deep, a re- 
mark in which it is difficult to determine which is 
most distinguishable, his wisdom or his humility. 
One new discovery made and communicated, one 
spark struck out of the dark unknown, like a fresh 
germ out of chaos, may not only bear fruit itself, 
but, as the ear of corn, bear new germs, so as ulti- 
mately to multiply beyond all power of computa- 
tion. The proper cultivation and improvement 
of our intellectual powers too, conduces to the 
improvement of our better and higher natures; 
for I can, with great sincerity, adopt the language 
of Junius, "grateful as I am to that Good Being, 
whose bounty has bestowed upon me this reason- 
ing intellect, whatever it is, I feel myself propor- 
tionally indebted to him, from whose enlightened 
understanding another ray of knowledge commu- 
nicates to mine. But, neither would I think the 
most exalted faculties of the human mind a gift 



16 



AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 





worthy of the Divinity, nor any assistance in the 
Improvement of them a subject of gratitude to my 

fellow creatures, were I not satisfied, that really, 
to inform the understanding, con eels and enlarges 
the heart." 



APPENDIX. 

As a brief and graphic little history of the inter- 
esting occasion on which the preceding discourse 
was delivered, the following communication to the 
\ onal Intelligencer it is thought will not be in- 
appropriate: 

"The Farmer's Meeting in t Montgomebt. — 
The Society for the improvement of the County 
which embosoms the District of Columbia and the 
capital of the Union enjoyed a most gratifying 
scene on Thursday last. It generally happens 
that voluntary associations for patriotic objects 
gradually decay when the first impulse imparted 
by novelty begins to fail. ' Everybody's business, 
nobody's business,' is a paralyzing proverb. But 
the Montgomery Association has fortunately had 
two most zealous nnd intelligent presiding officers 
in Messrs. A. B. Davis and Robert P. Dunlop. 

" The result is seen in the resurrection of worn- 
out farms; in the rapid improvement of others 
which were before in some degree of preservation; 
in the introduction of new and more valuable stock 
of all sorts, and in the greater variety and excel- 
lence of agricultural products. But what gave 
more significant earnest than anything else of fu- 
ture progress and usefulness in the Montgomery 
iciation was the great number of new Bubscri- 
who enlisted for the prosecution of the good 
work going forward. At no distant day it will 
environ the capital of our country with the most 
beautiful scene of cultivation anywht r e to be found. 
The gently undulating surface of the county; the 
sparkling perennial streams with which it is inter- 
sected, affording water for every agricultural and 
manufacturing purpose; the delightful climate of 
the high-rolling region which, lifted up between 
the Eastern Branch, the Northwest, and Rock 
Creek, looks abroad to the Blue Ridge in Virginia 
and the mountains in Maryland; the healthfulness 
of every section; the fountains that burst up on 
almost every farm; the capability of every rood of 
land for remunerating cultivation, with the prox- 
imity of Washington, the best market in the world, 
form a combination of advantages which cannot 
fail, with the zeal and energy inspired and aided 
with the resources which commerce and science 
have added, to raise the neighborhood of our grow- 



002 743 908 



ing metropolis from its old state of desolation to a 
J scene of exhilarating industry, productiveness, and 
beauty. 

" Some of these topics were finely illustrated by 
Mr. Hallowell in his admirable address. It 
was the speech of a practical fanner, a scholar, 
and philosopher. Franklin himself could not have 
made a more enlightening and useful appeal to the 
understanding and interest of the community, or 
I one better adapted to stimulate persevering indus- 
, try in the best pursuit of life. Although the ad- 
dress was extempore, it was evidently well digest- 
ed, and the President of the Society hopes that he 
I may induce Mr. Hallowell to write it out for pub- 
lication. 

" One of the most agreeable circumstances was 
the full attendance of the ladies from every quarter 
of the county with every sort of domestic fabric 
that enriches our households. No one could have 
j visited the pavilion, inscribed in letters of evergreen 
over the entrance, ' Household Uods and Household 
Goods,' without a sense of its appropriateness. No 
man could have looked upon the beautiful forms 
and faces and the handiwork provided to make a 
happy home without being sensible that, apart 
from the religion of the soul, there is a devotion 
to the domestic virtues and to those who best per- 
sonify them which may beget a kindred feeling. 

" The quiet, peaceful, vintuous people of Mont- 
gomery, whose gentle demeanor and virtuous hab- 
its have given a good name to their county, are 
blessed in return in their homes, in their wives 
ami daughters. The most remarkable of all the 
attendants of the exhibition at the grove near Rock- 
ville, was the grace and loveliness of the young 
beauties, who, mingling with the crowd of farm- 
ers, were all intent and gazing upon the stock and 
other agricultural products, unconscious that they 
were themselves ' the observed of all observers;' 
the objects for whose reception the earth was made 
a paradise, and for whose enjoyment every man 
should labor to restore it to its primitive beauty. 

"The fine bright breezy day and the music of 
the full band from the city resounding through the 
grove; the Bpeech of Mr. Hallowell so admirably 
suited to the occasion; the well-told remini 
of Mr. Custis bringing up the olden time; the soci- 
able pic-nics scattered here and there under the 
shades, all provided by the neighbors around, and 
to which friend:; and strangers from a distance 
were freely invited, made it altogether a true farm- 
er's festival, forming a striking contrast in every 
particular with race-ground gatherings, election- 
eering assemblages, &c, where every extravagant 
passion runs riot." 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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